Are We Really All Socialists Now?

by Dave Blount | February 11, 2016 1:42 pm

Left-wing Newsweek gloatingly welcomed Obama into power with this 2009 cover story:

It wasn’t true in 2009; significant resistance arose in the form of the Tea Party and the Republican takeover of both houses of Congress. But if the New Hampshire primary is any indication, it might be true in 2016:

New Hampshire gave a full-throated socialist a rout over semi-socialist Hillary Clinton on the Democrat side and the once and now apparently again socialist Donald Trump won the GOP primary after going left of Bernie Sanders in his final rallies in the state. To translate, Obama’s hope and change and fundamental transformation of the nation are right on track – barreling warp-speed to the left in both presidential primary contests.

We know Sanders is a socialist because he has always called himself one and behaved accordingly. But Trump’s digital brownshirts keep shouting that anyone who doesn’t revere The Donald is in league with the liberals. How could he be a socialist?

According to Trump, the problem is business, not government. No, government is as pure as the wind-driven snow. The problem with health care is big pharma and not the precious, amazing government bureaucrats.

Trump has recently denounced not only Big Pharma but also Big Oil and Big Insurance.

“Whether it’s the insurance companies or the drug companies or the oil companies, it’s all the same thing,” Trump said. “We’re never going to get our country back if we keep doing this.”

Doing what? Allowing big companies to find energy, cure disease, and protect risks?

The conservative/libertarian case against Trump could be rested after presenting a single exhibit: his support for socialized medicine.

For decades – as we all know – Trump has been an advocate for universal government health care. And while now he promises to replace Obamacare “with something terrific,” other than mentioning something about state lines, his rhetoric reeks of a big-government program and has nothing to do with market economics. …

He’s said very recently that “we’re gonna take care of everybody” and that Ted Cruz was “heartless” for apparently wanting to immediately replace Obamacare without some government-based Cruzcare. Funny thing: Rick Perry effectively ended his campaign in 2012 with his infamous “heartless” comment in a debate over deportation. Trump gets a pass.

Trump always gets a pass, because he is going to make America great again by making terrific deals. Anyone asking for specifics gets shouted down by the brownshirts.

When you sound like a Marxist on health care and attack someone like Cruz the way a Marxist would attack someone like Cruz, then it follows logically to apply “the duck test.”

(Memo to Rush, Laura, Sean, Steyn, Coulter, and others – feel free to notice months of red flags that have been in your colossal blind spots. They are not hard to spot.)

When this tasteless joke of a candidacy comes to its inevitable bad end, those bright enough to know better will have to answer for not speaking out soon enough to help mitigate the damage to the conservative cause.

On a tip from Mr. Freemarket. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.